While several articles suggest that PSM is a good predictor of job satisfaction (Norris 2003;
Vandenabeele 2009), our empirical study points to the utility of further questioning the
concept of job satisfaction itself. According to Brewer et al., individuals are willing towork
in public organizations for different reasons that are encompassed by different public
service orientations or dimensions (Brewer et al. 2000).With respect to the specific features
and organizational characteristics of bureaucracies (work settings, the specific ethos of
the office, the importance of rules and procedures), some public service orientations
might develop individual expectations that are incompatible with the organizational
functioning and working conditions of public organizations. In other words, resignation
may be explained by a negative person-organization fit. In the context of our study, the
‘commitment to public interest/civic duty’ as well as, to a lesser extent, the ‘attraction
to policy-making’ PSM dimensions do not induce resignation, whereas the ‘compassion’
and ‘self-sacrifice’ dimensions of PSM can be seen as factors of resignation.
Those specific results might also be interpreted according to psychological contract
theory or even equity theory. Both theories address the issue of the individual-organization
exchange relationship. The psychological contract may be described as a subjective
perception of the employment relationship and is mainly concerned with expectations
about the mutual obligations of employer and employee to the relationship (see, for
example, Rousseau 1995). Thus, resigned satisfaction might be the result of a violation
of this psychological contract. Employees who feel that their personal expectations are
incompatible with their working conditions might consider that the terms and conditions
of a reciprocal exchange agreement between themselves and their organization are not
fulfilled (Castaing 2006). Therefore, they will decrease their personal expectations in order
to reach a new equilibrium in their employment relationship. Equity theory, on the other